


the sorrow that hangs in the air even now

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [294]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Coping Mechanisms, Gen, Glaurung is the Worst, Maeglin has Issues, a new location--the Dragon Vineyards, there are a lot of conjured friends in this AU, title from Mary Oliver, we like our tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26297431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: Stay alive, Russandol said gravely, drawing up beside him on his sunset horse. That’s what is chiefly important. Make guns for them if you must. Remember what I taught you!I wish you were still here, said Maeglin.
Relationships: Maedhros | Maitimo & Maeglin | Lómion
Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [294]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1300685
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16





	the sorrow that hangs in the air even now

The horrid, shining man had not spared Maeglin a real glance until that smile. When he saw the smile, Maeglin was chilled, deep under his bruised skin, and in a moment’s wild grief, he thought,

 _She would have liked you_.

(She had not always liked Maeglin.)

He waited with Goodley, who did not spare him many glances either, and he did not say a word outside of his head.

As soon as the shining man—Glaurung—and the bull of an overseer had gone into the tavern, Russandol stepped out of the shadows and tipped his head in greeting.

_Your legs must be tired. Can’t you sit a spell?_

Of course Maeglin couldn’t rest his legs. But the imaginary question posed by an imaginary Russandol felt all the more real for being impossible. It was as if it could not have come from Maeglin’s thoughts alone. He could hear the words in Russandol’s rasping, lilting voice—a voice that sounded as if it had been smooth as water once, until someone had wrung the life from it—

 _No matter_ , Russandol said. _I’ll wait with you._

Maeglin had given him a coat, to cover those tattered slave-rags, and proper boots. But otherwise he looked the same as he had when they were in the forge together.

The creation was a new one. Maeglin had first fashioned it—fashioned him—in the upper room, when he was bought and sold for his hands, and what they could do. There in the shadows, Russandol’s gentle eyes and stooping shoulders had given Maeglin strength.

“Goodley, is it?” Glaurung asked, beating his gloves against his palm. “I could use a man of your talents.”

“Talents?” Goodley’s hard countenance did not crack, even under confusion.

“Your old master had much to say of you,” Glaurung said, his voice running down like oil.

 _It’s all right_ , said Russandol. He lifted the palm of his right hand and showed it to Maeglin. _See? No harm done._

Maeglin could not shape his features into a smile without being detected, but he said, _Yes, I’m so glad_ , in his mind.

Goodley agreed to go with them. They went back to Glaurung’s boarding house for his boxes and his horse. And then Goodley acquired a horse, too. Maeglin was obliged to ride behind him.

He knew only a little, but he knew that this man—the man whose waist he clung to—had treated Russandol cruelly. It was not truly enough, but it was _something_ , to imagine Russandol astride a steed as red as his hair, riding very tall and proud, with no weary cant of his shoulders at all.

 _They shan’t have us forever_ , called this Russandol, on the smoke-clouded wind.

There were hills around the city, and hills on every side as they rode out of it. There were craggy, hopeful hills that grew up to become the mountains, and there were patient, rolling, brown-bodied hills that lowered themselves into the lake-filled valleys. Whichever he saw, Maeglin could think only of how like it was…to the journey with Goodley, and farther back than that, to the journey to the Great Mountain Diablo. _That_ was months and months ago.

It had been springtime, then. Springtime when he was gathered from a place among kindly women—women who loved him (at least as much as he understood love)—and taken to the new life that cursed him still. Even hill-towns had no great vantage point of the world, if one was kept upstairs and confined to narrow windows.

Maeglin told himself many lies on the way to Diablo. Some of them were about love, and some were about what he would be able to see.

_Stay alive_ , Russandol said gravely, drawing up beside him on his sunset horse. _That’s what is chiefly important. Make guns for them if you must. Remember what I taught you!_

 _I wish you were still here_ , said Maeglin. Strange, how he was so honest, now. He hadn’t been able to say such things when Russandol sweated beside him, his shaking hands forced to stillness by nothing more than his own will.

Between all the hurts they’d laid on him—Bauglir had called them vengeance—it had been a hard thing, living life as Russandol. His leg was crippled. His back was still healing—Maeglin had seen it bared once, for washing, and he had felt the breath leave his throat to see the angry weals. There were dozens of them, crowding like red serpents on pale and weary skin.

When the weather was foul, Russandol’s footing slipped in the yard outside the forge. Maeglin had been _there_ , too, on one such occasion, when Murphy had ordered him to rebuild the fire anyway. Just as it had been nigh impossible for Russandol to light a fire of damp wood, shivering on the muddy ground—

So it felt impossible now for Maeglin to keep his head up, to keep hold of Goodley without clinging to him, to imagine working under the reptile gaze of this _Glaurung._

Murphy had laughed when Russandol could not get to his feet again. He had ruffled Russandol’s wet hair roughly, as a man might touch a dog he did not like particularly, and he had left him there.

Maeglin had offered no help. Dry-headed and cold-hearted, he stood behind the cave-wall and watched Russandol scrabble against the ground, his spine arching and falling with the strain.

_Don’t think of that now,_ Russandol said. _Took a little weight off my legs, is all. Lord knows I was spent, standing on them. And Gwindor came and helped me after a time. You saw that, too, didn’t you?_

_Yes. But I—_

_You had to keep to yourself. I know what that looks like. You needn’t be sorry, Maeglin. Stay alive._

Maeglin had never seen vineyards. As such, he could not imagine what the shriveled limbs and curling tendrils of the vines would look like full and fresh with summer color. He had never eaten a grape before, in fact, and did not know how they shone, rich and dusty-skinned, clustering beneath the broad-handed leaves.

He saw, instead, row upon row upon row of tortured paths. The paths tipped up and down, for of course, the land bore some semblance to the surrounding hills.

The sky was blue and white with afternoon. Maeglin felt despair settle over him, as scattered structures came into view—cabins and sheds and a house that, if not quite _grand_ , was more comfortable than anything else to be seen in the countryside.

There was also a stable.

When the horses were put away, so, too, was Russandol, for a time. Maeglin wrapped his arms across his thin chest and followed the two men into the low-roofed kitchen. It was empty; the stove cold.

Goodley asked, disbelieving, “So we’re to live here?”

Glaurung nodded. “Mind you, I’ve been round these parts before. It’s the old dragon’s property, though of course it’s not quite fine enough for her. This is a good, quiet place for…cultivation.” He smiled. “She told me it was in between uses…she intended it to serve as storage, what with goods coming in from your forge. But now that that’s been blown to bits, we’ll use the forge here. It’s small but serviceable.”

“The railroad work is primarily done in batches, and shipped out,” Goodley said. “But you know that, I shouldn’t wonder. The forge where _he_ comes from”—and Maeglin was very alarmed to be brought into the conversation, cowering as he was in a corner—“Was more experimental, though they filled gaps in the orders. That’s all I know.”

“Experimental is just what we want,” Glaurung said, tapping his clean-cut nails against the table. “Now, I promise you that we'll requisition a cook or two—you don’t cook, do you, Goodley?”

“Not unless I’m obliged.”

“We'll have few women to do our bidding, as well. That's in my terms.” Glaurung smiled. Maeglin imagined his lips splitting to his ears. Imagined his mouth opening wide enough to snap Goodley’s head off. Or Maeglin’s.

 _Steady on_ , whispered Russandol. He’d come back, he’d come _back_ , and Maeglin breathed a little sigh of relief. There he was, all six feet and more of him, lounging against the opposite corner. He didn’t think much of Glaurung or Goodley. Maeglin could see that.

“We had women in the camp,” said Goodley. “If we wanted ‘em. They were scrawny birds, mostly. Gothmog always took the healthiest for himself, but he had a hard hand, and they didn’t stay so for long.”

“He’s an interesting fellow, that Gothmog,” Glaurung mused. He took out a cigar, like a long dark finger, and set it to his lips. “Do you smoke, Goodley?”

“Oh, Lord,” said Goodley, real eagerness splitting the cold façade of his features. “If you can spare it.”

Glaurung could. They left Maeglin standing, unheeded, as they shared more than smoke; they took cheese and bread and jerked meat out of their packs. They also passed a flask of whiskey between them.

Against a cold wall, counting the black beams overhead, Maeglin was almost faint with hunger. He would have sooner fainted in fact than called their attention his way.

They were getting friendlier; the whiskey opened them up. Maybe, thought Maeglin, that was what this Glaurung creature wanted. He had asked Gothmog to have a drink too, after all.

Goodley _was_ more talkative with drink in him. He talked about the railroad and his old comrades and he talked about women—but not like Glaurung talked about women.

When Glaurung talked of women, their worthless words and pliant bodies, Maeglin felt his skin creeping. Glaurung rested his chin on his hand and made great puffs of smoke as his words turned the women both beautiful _and_ ugly. Like a fine cut of meat, somehow—

First butchered, then roasted, then devoured.

“Ah, go on,” said Goodley, hiccoughing with laughter at one florid flourish in a tale that had taken place, it seemed, just this morning. “You’re poem-making, now.”

“I’m a romantic, if not a gentleman,” said Glaurung, and his eyes were bright though the joke was at his own expense. He nibbled a bit more bread, and drank a bit more whiskey, and then, leaning forward, he asked, “You’ve told me of dailys, and expenses, and even of the blisters on your thumb, but I must beg to hear a little more of what _drives_ you. I saw at once that you were a driven man, Goodley. And though I think Gothmog is such a man in his way, I would rather let you flourish according to your own sense of workmanship. I rule with gold, but he ruled with an iron fist, didn’t he?”

“You could say that.” Goodley was cautious again. “Not that I thought it wrong. He had a good many slaves to manage, as well as men, and slaves is trouble.”

“Damnable trouble. I know a little of his woes, for he told me. Did _you_ know this arbiter of doom and demolition—this Russandol?”

Maeglin choked on his breath. He coughed, but mercifully, they did not look at him.

Goodley said, stiff and quiet, “I did.”

“The man is like a black curse on all of you!” Glaurung exclaimed, shaking his head so that one of the smooth-waxed curls atop it tumbled loose. “At least Gothmog could laugh at him…though I thought such laughter to be hard-won. But really, what can one wild dog have done to bring your spirits low, my good man?”

“It’s rather a complicated matter,” Goodley said, still guarded. Then he shook _his_ head, as if to clear it. “No—no. Maybe complicated ain’t the right word for it. He was an upstart, but in the way some women are. The ones who are quiet under you, but always running off when your back is turned?”

“I’ve never enjoyed a quiet woman,” Glaurung said, deadly serious. “But I feel as if I might enjoy him. What a pity he was smashed to bits after his little escapade last month. Don’t you think we could have used a vintner here? A wine-maker? Or has he soured enough grapes already? Ah, forgive my jest.”

“He was a bastard,” Goodley said, chewing the end of his cigar. “I’ve only ever been glad to see the back of him. Never more than when I was beating it.”

 _They’re rather a vicious lot, aren’t they?_ Russandol asked ruefully. _What do you suppose I did to make them hate me so?_

 _You—_ Maeglin’s thoughts blackened, and his heart beat hard. Sometimes, in this longing loneliness, he forgot why Bauglir had told him to hate Russandol.

The sun set on the vineyard. Indoors, Goodley lit a lantern. The flames shone in Glaurung’s eyes.

“Come here, boy,” Glaurung said suddenly, flaming eyes on Maeglin. “You must be hungry.”

Maeglin was hungry, but he didn’t want to come. He had shut Russandol away, and there was no one to look to, for either strength or courage.

“You’ve been awfully quiet,” said Glaurung, his lips pursed in disapproval. There was none of the same friendliness he had directed at Goodley or Gothmog, there. “What are you plotting?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“You are to be my little workman,” Glaurung said, handing him some crusts of bread and rinds of jerky. “And indeed, I’ll keep you better-fed than you’ve been this day. I’ll treat you very well, if you make me all of the guns I hear you can…but let us speak like men to one another for a moment.” He waited until Maeglin nodded and said,

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m a catcher,” Glaurung confided. His cigar had withered to a blunt, dead worm, scarring the table with its coal-black end. “I was paid remarkable sums for dragging back chattel that had gotten ideas in its head. And so, boy, if you run away, you may be certain that I shall catch you.”

“I—”

“Ah, ah. I am not finished. You deserve an honest account from me. If you run away, when I catch you, I shall not beat you. I am experienced in assessing the value of things, you see, and you need the strength of your back and arms and legs to work.”

Maeglin had worked in Bauglir’s shadow. He knew what it was like to be afraid. But Glaurung was looking at him so, so closely and coldly, that Maeglin felt sure that nothing about him—not his life, not his skill, not the memory of _her_ —mattered enough to this man to do him any good.

“I shall cut off your ears instead,” Glaurung said, still calm and quiet. “And if that does not do the trick, I shall make like some of my employers, and mark your forehead with an iron. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, now. Have a little whiskey. You look green, and though I _do_ mean to frighten you, I daresay you’re no good to me sick. Have you had enough of being a man today, Maeglin? Very well—then go to bed.”

Maeglin tried very hard to keep still as he stood. He would not tremble, but he knew he looked frightened.

“Any of the rooms you like,” Glaurung said, encouragingly. “This isn’t a prison.”

The house was as cold as the winter night without. Its sills were laden with dust; its rafters thatched with cobwebs. Maeglin made his way to the smallest of the rooms upstairs, where a straw pallet sank sadly against a plain frame. The chamber was otherwise empty, and Maeglin had only a small pack of clothes and tools and trinkets to add to it.

He was unused to home, to safety.

But this was unfriendlier even than the forge under the Mountain. He did not know why.

He put his hands over his mouth and wept. Silently at first, then betrayed by the occasional gasping sob. When he had regained himself a little, Russandol was there again.

Maeglin found he could still surround Russandol with light, in the dark room.

 _There now_ , Russandol said, his voice soft with compassion. _You’ve worn yourself out, poor lad. I know it’s a bleak place, but the bed is better than nothing. We didn’t much enjoy our quarters by the forge, did we?_

You _were chained to the bench_ , Maeglin said, because he’d seen it done.

Russandol grinned wryly. _You won’t let me forget a thing, will you? No—don’t be gloomy. I’m only teasing. You’re not a bad sort. Not a bad sort at all. And so I wouldn’t want grief for you, would I?_

Maeglin nearly forgot himself, nearly whispered, _But I brought—I brought news of you—_

_To Bauglir?_

How easily the name slipped from his tongue!

_Yes._

Russandol (with very little effort) seated himself on the edge of the pallet and patted it with his whole right hand. Maeglin had seen that hand disappear, when Russandol, his features illegible with blood, had had no strength to keep it from being laid in its tomb, and fastened there.

 _Bauglir’s fury,_ Russandol said carefully, _had nothing to do with you. I’m glad you told him. You saved your own skin. You know that, don’t you? He has no use for those who try his patience. You carried the message at the right time. I was living on borrowed time—truly I was._

_I could have given you more time._

_With this sorry leg? Lord love you. I’d have needed a thousand hours to have a real lead on them._

Maeglin did not undress. It was too cold for that. He lay down and pulled the blankets over him. He shut his eyes, the better to imagine that Russandol tucked them up snugly around his shoulders, though there was nothing truly cozy about musty wool.

He tried to conjure more words from Russandol, but all he could hear was words truly spoken and long-remembered:

_I can bear it, Gwindor. I can. I must._

_Lad, you’re going faint. Here—here—hold to my hand. As tight as you need. Until it passes._

Choking, Russandol had murmured, _It shall never._

Morning shimmered in frosty rays through a window that Maeglin had not made out at night. He slipped on his boots, then sat, hands clasping his knees, as if indecision could cloak him forever. There were voices beneath him, rising and falling as they had in taverns long ago. There was also the smell of bacon, which would have been appetizing to a fuller stomach. As it was, Maeglin screwed up his face in a moment of sick terror, and then passed his hands over it, breathing shallowly.

The kitchen, at least, was warm. There was a fire in the grate, and a thickset woman with a flat, expressionless face leaning over the stove. A whole rasher was sizzling there. In a chair drawn out from the table, Glaurung was tilted back, one boot against another chair, while a Chinese man in an apron shaved him with real soap and a tin basin.

“Good morning, boy,” Glaurung said cheerfully, his lips creasing in a smile through a beard of foam. “Say hello to Mrs. Talbot and my barber, whose name I shan’t pronounce. They are half our service. I told McCalagon that I needed a cook, a barber, a tailor, two guards, and two tarts. She has sent me a cook broad enough to shield me from a bullet, I daresay, and a barber who can stitch better than he can speak English—at least one hopes. Tarts and guards forthcoming, or I dock my duties in protest.”

Mrs. Talbot said nothing. She put down a plate before Maeglin and heaped eggs and bacon upon it.

The barber slid the gleaming blade along Glaurung’s right cheek and jowl, and wiped away the mixture of suds and bristle.

“Leave the upper lip,” Glaurung said, putting a finger over it. “A man must have his vanities.”

Maeglin took a seat.

“You’re filthy,” Glaurung said, disapprovingly. He narrowed his pale eyes. “Goodley went out to fetch some proper supplies—he is already as useful as I’d hoped—and he’ll bring back some sturdier things for you to wear. Not to mention tools. No, don’t look like a frightened rabbit. I’m never kinder than when I’m comfortable in my keep. It’s on the road they have to watch for me.” His eyes glittered. “You are a most valuable asset, and can make yourself more than a whoreson in time. I tested you a little yesterday—and you didn’t whine. Your face looks like milk, it’s true, but it turns out that I like a boy who doesn’t whimper.” His brow furrowed, and his gaze darted to the corners of the room. “Again I’m thinking of him,” he mused. “Ah, blast it all. A man should have a profession, not a passion.”

It seemed like a confession that had accidentally slipped out, but Maeglin believed firmly—if he believed anything—that Glaurung did nothing by accident.

When Maeglin was finished eating, they went outside together. Glaurung’s hair shone with oil and his chin with the effects of soap. He was dressed in another set of clothes that looked too fine for fieldwork. Even his leather coat had gold-threaded embroidery on the collar.

The bacon and eggs were heavy in Maeglin’s stomach. Russandol was nowhere to be seen, except that the day looked like him. It was a high, clear morning, rising above the ugly outbuildings and the wasted winter vineyards.

Glaurung took a roundabout way to the forge. “This is a time of resting for me,” he said, “Though I’m not unskilled in blacksmithing. I’ve put shackles on wrists and ankles before, and that’s delicate business, if the wearers are to walk again.” He stopped short and looked out at Maeglin from the furled brim of his hat. There was a shrewdness even in the way the skin of his face was stretched over its bones. Then he reached out one cruel, elegant hand, and rubbed his thumb against Maeglin’s cheek. “It’s as if you rolled in soot,” he said. “Enough that I had to look at Mrs. Talbot instead of some properly bewitching creature. But no matter. You’ve heard me talk a fair bit, Maeglin. Now I’d like you to tell me about yourself. Or better yet—tell me what you think of me.”

Maeglin swallowed.

Glaurung laughed. It was a high laugh for a man. Maeglin had never heard Russandol laugh, but if he had, Maeglin would have expected something low and soft and musical.

“That’s too bold a question for nine in the morning, ‘tisn’t it. All right, then. What do you think of Gothmog?”

“I never knew him before, sir.”

“And this god of the high peaks, this Bauglir?”

“He is…very learned, sir.”

_Do you see, dear boy? This is vengeance. This is your vengeance._

“ _Very learned_. He sounds like a pompous flower of a man, if you ask me. Oh, you don’t agree. Don’t make me coax you, so. Tell me outright. You find him very great and horrible, is that it?”

 _Don’t_ , said Russandol, standing much taller than Glaurung, and very close, _Even for a moment, trust him enough to tell him your fears._

“He gave me work to do and a place to sleep,” Maeglin said, shrugging. He imagined himself Russandol, in that moment where he had teased Maeglin a little, telling him to let him finish his task before Murphy was called to beat him.

Of course Russandol had fears. Maeglin had seen them hammered into him. But Russandol was very brave.

“You have humble demands, Maeglin,” Glaurung said. “Very well. We’ll put aside the infamous Bauglir. Now then…what of the infamous Russandol?”

 _He’ll know if you lie_ , Russandol said, his eyes like twin silver flames as they scorched Glaurung from head to foot. _So tell a half-truth._

“The slave?” Maeglin asked. They were close by the faded vines, now. Maeglin stared at their clever, twisted fingers, holding fast in death.

“Yes…the slave.”

“He was badly scarred.”

“I think more and more,” said Glaurung, in a thoughtful tone, “That if he were a woman, he would have been shared about in quite a different way. But as he is a man, most men can do nothing but hate and beat him. Does it seem so to you, or are you too young to understand?”

 _Go on_ , said Russandol. _I shan’t be offended._

“He was a bad seed, I suppose,” said Maeglin, frowning because it hurt him, but hoping that the frown looked like confusion. “Master Bauglir sent him to Gothmog to work, I heard. But he broke his leg and came to make guns with us.”

“And then he blew it all to hell and ran away.”

“Yes.”

“And was brought back.”

“Yes.”

Russandol said, _Fellow like this would eat his own tail if he had one, don’t you think? Fancy being envious of_ me.

 _I’m envious of you_ , said Maeglin, but not aloud.

“Boy,” said Glaurung coldly. “Are you daft?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I was just…just remembering.”

“Remembering this Russandol?”

“Yes. He kept to himself mostly, but they did punish him a good deal. As—as Goodley said.”

“Goodley did have a few delicious tales, didn’t he? Some wouldn’t be out of place in one of the old schools,” Glaurung said, his good humor restored. “D’you know, there are men who want to abolish slavery, in the east. They don’t understand that it is just the sort of thing that keeps people busy and occupied and—most importantly—in their place. Here’s the forge, boy.”

They had come to a long, low building, from which a familiar heat emanated. Someone must have lit the fires hours ago.

 _Stay alive_.

As Maeglin passed through the doors, so said Russandol—but he did not follow.


End file.
